Hidden Mercies

When Amish widow Claire Shetler is attracted to the man who caused her fiancé’s death, they must both heal deep wounds to discover God’s hidden mercies. At seventeen, Tobias Miller smashed his cousin’s car into a tree, killing his brother only four hours before he was scheduled to marry Claire Shetler. Unable to live with his father’s bottomless grief and anger, Tobias left the Amish church and ran away to join the Marines. Twenty-seven years later, Tobias, now called Tom, returns to Mt. Hope, Ohio, a wounded, decorated Marine helicopter pilot, and rents an apartment over Claire’s workshop. A widowed Amish midwife, Claire is struggling to support her family. When Tom rents her room she does not recognize the disfigured soldier as the boy she once knew. She only sees the money as a godsend, though she is nervous about having a strange man so close by. Claire never dreams that she will end up falling in love with a battle-scarred soldier. As Claire and Tom fight their way through the traumas of the past, they discover the tender mercies God has hidden along the way—including a loving father who has been praying for his prodigal son to come home and a God who makes all things new.

"At seventeen, Tobias Miller smashed his cousin's car into a tree, killing his brother only four hours before he was scheduled to marry Claire Shetler. Unable to live with his father's bottomless grief and anger, Tobias left the Amish church and ran away to join the Marines. Twenty-seven years later, Tobias, now called Tom, returns to Mt. Hope, Ohio, a wounded, decora ted Marine helicopter pilot, and rents an apartment over Claire's workshop. A widowed Amish midwife, Claire is struggling to support her family. When Tom rents her room she does not recognize the disfigured soldier as the boy she once knew. She only sees the money as a godsend, though she is nervous about having a strange man so close by. Claire never dreams that she will end up falling in love with a battle-scarred soldier."--Provided by publisher.

The 1980s and 1990s, the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, was decades ago now, and many of the stories from this time remain hidden: A Catholic nun from a small Midwestern town packs up her life to move to New York City, where she throws herself into a community under assault from HIV and AIDS. A young priest sees himself in the many gay men dying from AIDS and grapples with how best to respond, eventually coming out as gay and putting his own career on the line. A gay Catholic with HIV loses his partner to AIDS and then flees the church, focusing his energy on his own health rather than fight an institution seemingly rejecting him. Set against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the late twentieth century and the Catholic Church's crackdown on gay and lesbian activists, journalist Michael O'Loughlin searches out the untold stories of those who didn't look away, who at great personal cost chose compassion--even as he seeks insight for LGBTQ people of faith struggling to find a home in religious communities today. This is one journalist's--gay and Catholic himself--compelling picture of those quiet heroes who responded to human suffering when so much of society--and so much of the church--told them to look away. These pure acts of compassion and mercy offer us hope and inspiration as we continue to confront existential questions about what it means to be Americans, Christians, and human beings responding to those most in need.

Upon moving to a farm in rural Ohio to distance herself from memories of war, former military nurse Grace Connor meets the conservative Levi Troyer, who struggles with reconciling his feelings for outsider Grace with his Amish faith.

When teenager Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind her reputation as Linden Falls' golden girl forever. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It's Brynn—shy, quiet Brynn—who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget Allison and the past that haunts her. But then Allison is released to a halfway house, and is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister. Now their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

When an Amish woman falls for the New York crime writer who buys her family farm, she must decide whether to follow the longings of her heart or the rules of her faith. When an Amish woman falls for the New York crime writer who buys her family farm, she must decide whether to follow the longings of her heart or the rules of her faith. When Hope Yoder loses her husband, she is left trying to support her two small children—and one on the way—however she can. She ends up taking a job as a part-time housekeeper for the Englisch man who has bought the farm that once belonged to her family. Logan Parker is a bestselling crime fiction writer from New York City who accompanies his fiancée on a trip to Holmes County, Ohio, but the trip takes a strange turn when he sees an Amish farmhouse for sale. Intrigued by a strong sense of familiarity, he enters the house and is overcome with a feeling of deep peace. He’s never been to Ohio before, but something in this house feels right, and he purchases the farm to use as a retreat. Something about the peacefulness of the house frees him from the crippling writer’s block that threatens to ruin his career, and something about the quiet Amish woman who comes to clean his home makes him less and less excited about returning to New York and the woman he is supposed to marry. Slowly, Logan and Hope are drawn together, and when they discover that they share a strange past, they must decide how that affects their future. Will Hope overcome her fear of embracing love again?

Veteran social worker Ellen Moore is a fiercely dedicated children's advocate and a devoted mother and wife. But one blistering summer day, a simple moment of distraction will have repercussions that Ellen could never have imagined, threatening to shatter everything she holds dear, and trapping her between the gears of the system she works for. Meanwhile, ten-year-old Jenny Briard suddenly finds herself on her own, forced to survive with nothing but a few dollars and her street smarts. The last thing she wants is a social worker, but when Ellen's and Jenny's lives collide, little do they know just how much they can help one another.

People who are only nominally spiritual have relatively little trouble sensing some sort of Divine presence when looking up at a beautiful snow-capped mountain or looking around in a grand cathedral. But even deeply spiritual individuals would likely admit that finding God in the places and faces that define daily life can be a bit more challenging. In Small Mercies, fifty-something Nancy Jo Sullivan reflects on her life to this point—which includes the death of one of her daughters and a painful divorce—and discovers with great joy that God has been, and continues to be, everywhere. From her grandmother’s not-so-tasty date cookies to a dog that seems bent on attacking her to a conversation with her daughter about the function of muscles, Sullivan gives readers—especially second-half-of-life women—every reason to expect God to show up in the most unexpected ways. Ultimately, Small Mercies encourages us to stop "limiting" God to those rare moments where all seems sublime and perfect, and instead to seek out God's mercies in the ordinary, often imperfect moments that shape our everyday lives.